Not a pro, but successful up to I-1. I rise the trot on my young horse. I personally prefer sitting, but I want to free his back as much as possible at this stage. It is often best for the horse. I believe the option was added for exactly that purpose, not to dumb things down. In fact at a seminar about riding the levels, that is what was stated by a member of the test writing committee!
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I just don’t understand why people care if people never move past first because they can’t sit. This is like over in eventing people saying they stayed at BN for 10 years. So what? I mean seriously what does that matter. Make it so people have to sit at first, and then you just have a whole bunch of people who don’t pass training level or pick another sport entirely.
I mean I have tons of internal drive. I will continue to move forward because that’s who I am as a person. But I have a fair few friends who just have fun. They have fun riding the same test year after year. That’s not me, but they like it and their horse has no aspirations. So I don’t care.
At the upper levels our horses are SO much nicer than if you watch some of those old tests. I don’t understand what you’re trying to fix. Trying to make dressage even more elitist and difficult to enter?
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I think riders being unable to sit the trot is putting expectations too low. HOWEVER, I don’t think allowing riders to pick a posting trot is dumbing down the sport - I think it allows riders to do right by the horse. My mare generally prefers a sitting trot, and used to get unbalanced from the uneven emphasis on hind legs caused by posting. However, she now has overall far better balance and strength, and we’re getting ready to show second level. I will still absolutely post any time I need on her, though, I will post prior to entering the ring for second level if she needs it, I will just lighten my seat while in the ring if she starts getting tight in her back.
I’m a crappy lower level rider bringing my own horse up the levels (with a LOT of pro help), and I absolutely think being able to sit her trot was a basic I better have mastered long ago. However, I also feel the ability to post when she is better served by posting is a benefit of the rules allowing posting at first level.
So I both agree and disagree. I feel that too often these days trainers have low expectations of riders, and self-defeating dialogue from riders also impedes progress. I have seen my trainer help older, unfit (due to health issues) women who were beginners learn to sit the trot well. There’s a horse aspect of it, of course - I still struggle on my guy who is simply way too big for me, and if I were showing him that would be a problem. Logically, he’s probably not a horse I should have bought, and there is a horse mismatch issue for many people. I knew more when I bought my mare, and bought myself a good match, and it’s about 300% easier. At the same time, despite her being physically easy to ride, I post at times in first level tests.
Yeah, that timeline fit with the PSG at 7 we seem to see with many international type horses.
From my experience, we’re schooling all those things with my mare, but are certainly nowhere NEAR 4th level and she’s 7. What isn’t covered is the balance which develops from this work and which you should have to show those levels. We use those exercises to improve her balance and collection - so I’m looking to move into second level with those exercises all working to help her develop the strength and carriage to sustain what she needs for second and higher levels. She is a later bloomer, just starting to really fill out and develop strength (and finally NOT butt high all year after spending most of her riding career so far downhill in growth stages), so that balance simply wasn’t going to come earlier. My trainer has a 6 year old who he showed second level this year, but was schooling all the listed exercises at 5/6. However, with her very nice movement (nationally competitive, marginal on whether or not she has international quality gaits from several experts’ opinions) she also can have tension. He’s moved her slower to get her back swinging and loose - and now at late 6, she is swingy and easy to sit and ride, where before she was tighter in the back, needed much more posting trot, and moved slower in progression. He easily could have met that timeline, shown third level at 5 and be showing 4th now. However, her body and movement would not have developed as it has with that rushed timeline.
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Well, 40 years ago around here if you didn’t jump or do barrels or pole bending, and had a niceish horse you wanted to get off the property a few times a year, you went to a flat hack class English or Western. You went walk trot canter reverse and maybe some changes within gaits depending on the class. Dressage did not exist as a local competitive sport. Obviously people were doing dressage at the Olympics, but they weren’t doing it locally.
Now the flat class really only exists as part of the breed shows, or as very low level schooling shows. The population of riders who would have gone to flat classes, now goes to Training or First Level dressage tests (or walk/trot dressage). I believe it’s considered safer since you don’t have to ride in a group with other people.
I don’t know how the world supported FEI dressage riders before there was the big population of First level riders to pay fees for shows.
Anyhow, I think of most Training and First level riders as really just doing a flat class, and have no expectations they will advance. It’s just its own thing. For most people it doesn’t really lead anywhere up the levels. But it’s not doing any harm, since they aren’t riding worse than they would if they were in a flat hack course. Indeed, they are probably riding better overall than the same person would be riding 40 years ago.
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I have been competing in dressage since 1975, but due to circumstances beyond my control, the highest I’ve personally trained a horse is 3rd level. One horse I had to sell so I could afford college, a couple horses got hurt or couldn’t collect well enough for showing at 3rd, and one horse dropped dead as he galloped up to greet me. I have 2 horses now, but I also have a newly minted teenager, a husband, a full time job, and an elderly mother in the early stages of dementia. One horse I bought as an unbroke coming 6yr old, the other I’ve had since he was 2. I had dreams/plans of being at 4th level by now with the older horse, but life is getting in the way, and so he is only just now becoming competent at 3rd level. The youngster is now 6 and still green broke because he had a rough go at growing and I wound up just putzing around on him while he finished developing. Next year I’ll be showing him in event derbies. All this to say that I guess that makes me one of your dumb, incompetent amateurs who will never go anywhere in dressage. That’s ok with me! I have learned so much during my journey with dressage and have gotten so much joy out of it that a bunch of nay-saying railbirds affect me not. And, btw, I am glad they finally allowed rising trot in 1st level. Now I have the option of rising, if the horse is too tense to handle sitting, so that the horse gets the most positive experience possible early in his show career.
I used to do TaeKwnDo with my son. It takes a minimum of 2 years to acquire a 1st degree blackbelt (although I cheated and got mine in 18 months), and there are, I believe, 8 degrees you can go. It took me another 2yrs to get my 2nd degree and I quit half way through my 3rd degree. Most people consider it a great achievement to just get that first black, people who do TKD seriously know that is just the beginning. I think dressage is the same way. Most people think it is a real achievement just to get to 3rd level, people who make dressage their life know 3rd is just the beginning.
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The training plan you’ve laid out is one of a professional rider; meaning that the rider isn’t learning how to ride in the process.
It’s not that different than what goes on today, just look at the young horses tests. On a good regular training program, it shouldn’t take ages to develop a horse correctly.
The FEI has set a limit of age for horses so horses don’t do PSG before they are 7yrs old. Which make sense with the training plan you presented. Which aimed at eliminating abuses from the past in that direction; people were presenting horses that were way too young.
What changed is that regular levels are also for people learning how to ride.
I don’t believe they were dumbed down. They just changed to accomodate more riders and be fairer to more horses who might not physically and/or mentally be ready for the young horses tests series. It just gives more avenues for all to develop correctly at their rhythm.
And even if the directives were dumbed down, doesn’t mean you cannot aim at higher standards; which are still in the rule book.
*Thinking at the « on the bit » thread.
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I think amateurs in dressage face multiple realities that make the 22-month track unrealistic - access to good instruction, time to ride often/long enough to develop the muscles for horse and rider, knowledge of how to ride that well, horses without issues, and honestly, priorities. I love my horses and riding, but I love my DH and a number of other pursuits as well. I ride 3-4 days a week and I know that limits the fitness my horses attain, but I also workout and do things beyond riding that I value, and life is good.
If that balance I enjoy in life means I don’t move up the levels, does that mean I can’t still go out and compete? I think I will move up, but I spent years riding young/sales horses, so the higher level stuff is newer to me - and I want a guide I trust moving into uncharted territory. I’d much rather ride correctly at Training/First, then force something to execute a movement but create gaps in the training and potentially damaging work for the horse. I’ve seen people competing at higher levels, and you could not PAY me enough to “ride” like some of them ride!!!
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The OP implied nothing about competing priorities, family, time, etc. The premise of the OP is that people seem willing to settle for a goal of Training or First Level.
Of course one has to travel thru those levels on the way to 3rd and 4th…but the point of the OP is that people consider Trg and 1st Level as a “destination”…and don’t consider them just waypoints to 3rd and 4th…and that 3r/4th capabilities are what a well-schooled horse would have been expected to know…back when.
If you look at the George Morris Young Rider Horsemanship Clinics those horse are doing 3rd/4th work…why not dressage folk?
When I have mentioned about playing with canter half-pass, pirouettes, canter departs from pirouettes, and even playing with piaffe as gymnastic way to develop engagement in the young horse, people look at me quite like I’ve landed from Mars.
My beef is mainly with trainers that seem to keep their students at these very elementary levels without opening the door to their students to show them movements that lead to the progression to upper levels.
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On this, I think this does address some real issues - I think there is a severe shortage of trainers who actually know how to train horses up through the levels. So trainers have clients with big budgets that they take shopping for made horses, and absent the budget to buy the training, they have clients at lower levels. Or if a trainer actually knows how to train, they do clinics and may have some clients, but there really just aren’t many that actually know how to MAKE horses up the levels. Meaning even if a rider had the ambition, if they aren’t willing to buy a horse that knows it, due to budget or lack of willingness to sell their current mount(s), they top out at the lower levels.
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Imo, because too many riders start out or specialize in riding dressage before they have a good seat and basic riding fundamentals. The jumping disciplines (even beginner novice) requires a rider to have decent balance and knowing how to ride a horse forward.
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But 1rst level is for ‘‘beginners’’… be it the horse or the human. Like you said below : lower level riders.
I do not believe the majority of Training and First Level horses are young. I’m repeating myself, but I believe those classes are mostly filled with lower level riders. I also feel that those riders with the young horses, specifically the pros, are sitting the trot. First Level horses should be schooling Second which introduces light collection and sitting.
Maybe not young but not muscled enough to carry a rider properly.
I scribe a lot, judges truly prefer riders who won’t interfere with the horse’s movement. In many cases, I heard and wrote : Rising trot would be more appropriate at this stage (or something in the like).
I wrote that on Young Horses’ tests too because horses showed some better steps when riders were doing rising trot parts.
Rising the trot is not a shame or a sin. I don’t sit the trot much until the horses I train are confirmed at 3rd level… because I believe they then have all the muscles to really carry me and be stay through.
You bring up the 1975 tests which were less complex, but I mentioned the circa 1990 tests which were more difficult at Training and First. I believe the original goals of the tests were to build on things so the horses can advance up the levels. This allowing positing trot at First Level doesn’t help in producing riders that can advance to sitting at Second.
On the contrary, I believe that putting the emphasis on a good and effective rising trot in order to really get those working gaits going through is vital to go up the levels afterward. We see too many riders slowing down in order to sit and interfering with their horse’s way mostly because the horse isn’t strong enough.
I’ve worked a lot on my rising trot and it improved by x1000 my sitting trot.
But again, I will refer to the ‘‘on the bit’’ thread… the understanding of the working gaits is also important. That’s why people are not going up the level.
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Yes, I said that is what it is now; mostly novice riders in TL and 1st. However, I believe the tests were designed to test a horse, not the ability of the rider. Ideally, a young/untrained horse should not be matched with a novice rider. By First Level, a correctly trained horse should be muscled enough to carry a rider. For goodness sake, we are not talking about pounding on a horse’s back at sitting trot for one hour. We are talking about a simple 5 minute test, only a couple of minutes of that at the trot.
I scribe a lot, judges truly prefer riders who won’t interfere with the horse’s movement. In many cases, I heard and wrote : Rising trot would be more appropriate at this stage (or something in the like).
I wrote that on Young Horses’ tests too because horses showed some better steps when riders were doing rising trot parts.
Well, that very likely bcause the rider can’t sit well. It is imo more difficult to connect a horse rising and a connected horse moves better.
Rising the trot is not a shame or a sin. I don’t sit the trot much until the horses I train are confirmed at 3rd level… because I believe they then have all the muscles to really carry me and be stay through.
Well that’s you, and probably the majority on this thread. I sit as soon as I feel the horse is ready.
On the contrary, I believe that putting the emphasis on a good and effective rising trot in order to really get those working gaits going through is vital to go up the levels afterward. We see too many riders slowing down in order to sit and interfering with their horse’s way mostly because the horse isn’t strong enough.
That’s what the warmup is for; forward work at rising trot. You do not see ‘good’ riders slowing down the gaits in order to sit.
I’ve worked a lot on my rising trot and it improved by x1000 my sitting trot.
Again, that’s you. Rising trot does nothing to improve my sitting trot.
From what I can tell, this is pretty rampant.
Interestingly, while I don’t ride with multiple trainers in town, I see the majority of riders at shows from here riding with trainers who give them more and more of those upper level tools even while they are showing lower levels, helping them progress and move up. I’m actually impressed that we seem to have a majority of trainers whose riders are advancing. Right now we seem to have a lot of people at second level, so I look forward to having tons of competition at shows… A couple years ago our adult amateur PSG classes had 8-10 riders. Mostly on horses they had brought up the levels with help from their trainers.
One of my first lessons with my trainer he said “no, you don’t want to do that because when you are asking for piaffe later it will be how you aid” regarding how I was using my seat, and he had me change it up. That’s where it’s important to have a trainer who knows where you’re going and can help you advance, but I think too many trainers do see lower levels as a destination.
I have no problem with all the various life priorities which get in everyone’s way. That’s normal, that’s life, horses have no agenda. But I absolutely agree that it’s really not ok for riders to be limited by trainers seeing lower levels as the be-all, end-all, and not helping them learn and progress. Too many places around the country don’t have the access to trainers who help them all - and I know I have friends in other places who end up self-teaching and bringing in or going to clinicians to try to get the help they need.
And thus why I said that “collection” should not be part of the vocabulary at 2nd Level. A << well schooled >> (operative word = “well schooled”) jumping horse is “collected” when the rider gathers it and the horse engages the haunches for the jump, then sits to push off for the bascule. A jumping horse is “collected” when it can adjust and lengthen the canter to make the related distance.
You actually see nice engagement in what is now called “eventing dressage”…which I’m starting to prefer to see as ti shows a horse that has learned to use its body in an athletic manner.
What I see at dressage 2nd level is rigidity due to people attempting to cram a horse together that has not learned to balance itself…which leads to the use of the double bridle at 3rd level.
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I think it’s possible that walk/trot is the new first level, and first level is the new third level, in terms of people who think they need to “go up the levels” taking a year at each. Riding first level then becomes “aspirational”: maybe someday I’ll be good enough to be a “first level rider.”
I see a dichotomy here. On the one hand, one is told one shouldn’t be contemplating an advance beyond training level without being able to sit the trot perfectly, and on the other, one is being told to play with canter half-pass and pirouettes… which seems like a questionable idea on your average unfit and poorly muscled horse.
Seriously though, the biggest issue in my little world is the lack of well trained schoolmasters available for lessons.
For instance, take the flying change. I know enough to know that a clean change is hard to teach a horse and easy to mess up, and hard to fix if you do mess it up. So I want to feel it first on a trained horse, and learn how to get it on a horse that knows how to do it, so I can then fumble around with some degree of correctness and hope of getting it on my own horse without totally screwing up his changes forever. Is that horse available to me? No, it is not.
These schoolmaster beasts are pretty much mythical nowadays. Particularly for those of us out in the dressage hinterlands. So you work with what you have, (this includes available trainers, who I can tell you, are a darned sight better now than they were 20 years ago, but still, hinterlands…) and bumble along trying to teach your horse what you really don’t know how to do yourself, at the pace dictated by your resources.
And the George Morris kids? Even out here, there’s plenty of equally well resourced, well mounted, in-training-with-BNT-in-CA dressage kids who can give them a run for their money, and they aren’t showing eternally at training and first.
It’s the middle-aged ladies who didn’t have a foundation in school work who are now trying to figure out a way to stay riding and having fun in ever-increasing suburbia who are doing that. And good for them, really.
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Everyone has different ambitions. As others have mentioned, dressage classes have become the replacement for open flat classes that used to exist. If a rider’s goals are to ride well at Training/1st level, it has zero effect on me and my riding goals, so I don’t understand the purpose of fretting over it. They might not climb very far up the training scale, but at least they have a solid and correct foundation for riding and enjoying their horse.
I don’t think there is a vast conspiracy among trainers to keep their students at the lower levels. I think there’s a lack of upper level trainers in the US who have the ability to bring a horse and rider up the levels - as LilyAndBaron alluded to. For the average lower level adult amateur, it can also be hard in the US to gain a clear understanding of the path forward, when anyone can call themselves a dressage trainer, and the US dressage system is a smorgasbord of classical, French, Dutch, and German training methods. This is detrimental to both horses and riders. For horses, one trainer may have brought them along successfully to 3rd/4th level, then the horse ends up in another trainer’s hands and that trainer insists that the horse needs to be “fixed” - I’m not placing blame on any particular system or trainers here, I see this happen all the time. Students can be limited in similar ways, if they switch trainers, or they can be confused by the overwhelming and seemingly conflicting philosophies of dressage, with no grounding in a curriculum like the European countries have.
I just had a conversation with the BO this morning about a fully capable adult rider on a well-trained horse who showed up at a local schooling show and entered Intro B & C. She could have asked for a score and taken herself out of the ribbons, but that would have cost her on the year-end points competition. She was up against several young riders from our barn who should be at Intro level and don’t have many opportunities to show. I hope she enjoyed herself. She sure didn’t do much to motivate kids who were faced with showing against an experienced adult who should have been at least in TL.
So are the tests now “dumbed down” ??? That depends partly on which combination you are of new rider, experienced horse, vice versa, or any of the innumerable permutations.
I too believe that we know so much more now about horses and how they develop physically, although that still doesn’t stop some people from pushing hard to produce a competitive mid-level youngster. How many horses do we all know about (in every discipline) who are retired at a tender age, are lame or worn out and getting shots, supplements and whatever else to keep them comfortable as they live out their senior years. While 20 used to be considered pretty old, most horses now live to their mid- to late 20s with better diets and better vet care. That spurs more human desire to keep them going as long as possible. I can recall at least one recent thread here, the gist of which is “how do I keep my senior horse competitive?” My desire is to keep senior me (69) and senior horse (23) comfortable and riding until one of us really does need to retire.
One of the biggest problems I see in the dressage world is this inveterate march up the levels to FEI. I think the lower levels should there in part for the people who want to ride and compete at a lower level with a horse that won’t rise above first or second. As someone said above, it’s the lower levels that are bankrolling the visibility and growth of dressage. It could go back to the old days when it was basically an Olympic sport and the US wasn’t all that great at it.
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You guys are missing the point…there is nothing finer than a sensitive, responsive horse. I think every rider would enjoy riding such an animal.
What I see at TL and 1st are people who are struggling…even at TL you can have a sensitive forward horse.
But I don’t see people “looking” for that riding experience these days.
Why?
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I feel like you’re shifting the goal posts here - the idea of aiming for a sensitive, forward, responsive horse was not something that came across as one of your main points in the OP. And I’m not sure what the objective is - to criticize those who aren’t as “pure” in their interest in dressage? 
If you think that every rider would enjoy riding a sensitive, responsive, horse - well, you’re mistaken. Every rider has different goals, and some may not feel confident to handle a sensitive horse, who might interpret a rider’s mistake as a cue, or be too in-tune with a rider’s headspace and pick up on anxiety, nervousness, etc. Not every rider needs a sensitive and forward-thinking horse. What they do need (speaking for adult amateurs here) is a horse that they can feel safe and confident on. And perhaps in time, as they progress their riding skills, that sensitive and forward horse will become more appealing.
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